Company: Hometree
Founder(s): Simon Phelan
Website: www.hometree.co.uk
Description: Hometree keeps homes warm, safe & working through fairer boiler & home cover plans, without the price hikes.
Hometree offer homeowners peace of mind & control in the running of their home, letting them focus on the things that really matter through a range of policies that cover breakdowns and repairs to the critical infrastructure in their home – heating, electrics, plumbing, drainage and gas fires. Homeowners & landlords sign up for a monthly subscription contract, and if they have any home emergencies, one of Hometree’s 1500+ nationally based engineers will be dispatched to solve the problem.
The idea for Hometree came five years ago when, through his work, the founder Simon Phelan (pictured) was exposed to the problems at all the big home cover providers. These included unjustified price increases, poor service levels which weren’t being improved through technology, and virtually no progress on decarbonising heat – which today is responsible for over a third of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
He believed that the home services industry could change into one which was transparent & fair, technology enabled to ensure home emergencies are solved quicker & quicker, and that it could use its unique capabilities to be a driving force in making heat in our homes green.
As a highly tech-enabled company, Hometree is leading the transition of the home services industry to a digitally-led one – where consumers will increasingly be able to expect the same level of service they routinely experience from leading tech companies such as Ocado or Deliveroo.
For Hometree, the future for the industry is harnessing the power of the Internet-of-Things and smart home hardware to move a reactive customer experience into a proactive one, where more tech-enabled providers such as Hometree are able to inform the customer that something has broken down, and perhaps even prevent the fault occurring in the first place.
The London based Insurtech last September raised £7m in a funding round led by global investment firm Anthemis, and existing investors DN Capital and Literacy Capital – the fund led by ex. Capita CEO Paul Pindar. Silicon Valley Bank also participated in the round alongside Gumtree Founder Michael Pennington & many of Hometree’s existing shareholders.
The funding round comes on the back of a significant growth spurt for the start-up – which originally started in the home heating market, but has since expanded into the Home Cover or Home Emergency Insurance market – pitting them up against industry giants British Gas & HomeServe.
In 2020 the company grew YoY by over 300% and aims to more than double their growth again in 2021.
